On Jan. 13-14, the third KAIAC forensics tournament of the year took place at Korea International School (KIS). Like the previous tournament, more than half of the speech and debate students from SIS placed amongst the top three of each category.
“We had nine teams for the debate section and six teams ranked amongst the top four.” said Michael Silber, SIS forensics coach. “Although we can strive for more, I still think we had great results considering the fact that we had less practice time than all the other tournaments. However, the coaches always have high expectations because we’ve been in this league for some time.”
The two sections of the varsity forensics team competed on different days with speech held on Friday and debate held on Saturday. Specifically, there are multiple sections within the two major categories of speech and debate. In the speech category, there are a total of seven different sections including Extemporaneous, Oratory, Poetry, Prose, Impromptu, as well as Solo and Duo Interpretation. In the debate category, there are three different sections: Lincoln Douglas, Parliamentary and Public Forum.
“I think having different sections in forensics is important because we get to explore our boundaries.” said Yoon Lim (10), varsity forensics member. “Especially for categories like poetry, it is really difficult to interpret a piece alongside finding your voice within the piece. However, you get used to it and find excitement in being able to understand the author’s message. For other categories, you will hit another wall of obstacles but that allows you to explore your own boundaries.”
According to Juhyung Park (12), varsity forensics member, students only had one practice session before the competition due to winter break, which made this tournament especially more challenging. However, despite such a last minute practice session, SIS students were able to succeed in the tournament because they had been training every week since the start of the first semester.
“The tournament on Saturday was my first time competing in KAIAC for forensics.” said Andie Kim (9), varsity forensics member. “My partner and I were part of Parliamentary and debated five rounds, including the Semi-Finals round. It was a great experience, especially because I could meet a lot of new people from different international schools. I was a bit unfamiliar with the speaking times and orders, but I was able to adjust very quickly and could even feel myself improving as I debated. Our efforts and preparation really paid off, and I look forward to the next KAIAC tournament.”
There are high hopes for the SIS forensics team to finish strong at the last tournament before the all-star debate competition, which will be held at Gyeong-gi Suwon International School during April with only the top members competing. Until then, all members will continue to work arduously and refine their own skills to end the year on a high note.